The ORANJ Quartet

The group grew out of the Legislative Committee of ORANJ. The original spark was set off by David Hibberson’s “one man band” in 2001 that morphed into the Legislative Committee. David, who is a resident of Harrogate, worked closely with Charles Germany, a resident of Winchester Gardens, who wrote the mission statement for ORANJ, which includes the goal of “establishing and safeguarding resident rights and responsibilities by enhancing resident participation in governance.”

Wink Livengood of Fellowship Village became the third member of the Quartet in 2003. She contributed great interest and skill with a lifetime of experience in legislative negotiations. Finally, in 2005, Gary Baldwin of Seabrook Village became President of ORANJ. He became the final member of the Quartet when he gave strong priority to the legislative goal of getting the bills passed and became their tireless advocate.

Dave worked closely with sponsors, Senator Robert Singer and Assemblyman Ronald Dancer in drafting the bills that eventually became S425/A3989. Eventually, Senator Karcher and Assemblyman Michael Panter were also persuaded to sponsor the bills and helped to guide them to a successful conclusion in both the Senate and the Assembly. Until its victory in 2007, the quartet worked constantly with legislators, both behind the scenes and in full view, when they testified eloquently for the bills in committees, leading to successful votes in the full Senate and Assembly.

Of course, the residents of CCRCs that are members of ORANJ also aided the effort by responding to calls for letter writing and by supporting the legislation through attendance at legislative sessions when the bills were discussed. But the Quartet orchestrated the delicate process of morphing an idea for residents’ rights into a legislative mandate, and the rest is history.